kd8our:How the fark do people come up with this shiat? I mean really. I have heard of penis panic, but damn is it among the dumbest things I have ever heard come out of humanity.

I honestly suggest that if we give aid to such people that the aid should also include basic education and biology. Failing that, let them figure it out or starve trying.

Dismal or zero education coupled with ancient beliefs passed down through oral traditions compounded by a world too complicated to fully understand which changes too quickly for the common clay of the land to adjust.

wow, they shot the guy. Did they find the penis on his person, did they check to see if the dick was actually still connected? These idjits don't care they cost a mans life over their tomfoolery. Africa, a third world continent 'till end of time.

As a Fortean, I read a lot of stories about panics, "witchcraft", culture-bound panics and similar phenomena.

In Asia, penis-shrinking panic is common. Men become convinced that their penises are shrinking and often injure themselves in attempts to prevent the vanishing of their virility, for example, by attaching weights to the penis.

In Africa it is penis theft, which since it is associated with witchcraft, sorcery or traditional magic and confused with organ thefts for magic, is a particularly complex and dangerous phenomenon. As the article hints, it is largely an urban phenomenon and directed at envied or feared groups such as foreigners from more sophisticated societies (in Africa and overseas).

A panic is said to be culture-bound when it is peculiar to people of one culture and not "contagious"--penis-theft is not culture-bound since "organ stealing" is a rumour which can spread anywhere like warnings against leaving your drinks unattended or warnings against swarmings or pickpockets.

Note the distrust of merchants, of truck drivers, of foreigners, Europeans, people from specific countries that are relatively developed such as Nigeria.

Also note that this sort of belief in witchcraft is, as the article says, something which was common in our own societies not all that long ago, historically speaking. You might think that no one believes in witchcraft in the West today, but you'd be wrong. I was constantly exposed to silly rumours when I was younger by fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, who belief in witches, Satanic cults and conspiracies and so forth. In my native Province of New Brunswick (which is no more backwards than bits of New England, let alone the American South), there has been witchcraft panics not unlike those in Africa.

My belief is that these panics and rumours are particularly strong in times of trial and tribulation (economic, political, social) and are, like all urban legends, didactic and moralizing as well as pointed warnings against "the other(s)". The ethnic cleansing of contemporary Africa is no different from and motivated by the same politics and psychology as the witchhunting and panics of medieval and even early modern Europe and North America.

I have ancestors who were on both sides of the Salem Village witch trials of 1692. That year was a hard one for the Puritans of Salem. They had strong connections with Port Royal in Jamaica, which was destroyed by an earthquake just before the witchcraft panic, and crops were poor. Both Salem and Port Royal are typical of the disasters that provoke even today's Pat Robertsons and others of that ilk to claim that God is punishing us for the sins of the "others", who today are mostly homosexuals, commies, and liberals, but were "witches" and sinners in 1692.

Africa is currently full of converts eager to show their faith and willingness to die or cause others to die for God. It has mega-churches vastly larger and more superstitious than even the worst American cults of hatred. Converts, says conventional wisdom, are the worst fanatics, and I see in Africa and elsewhere today, the same individual and collective madness that we associate with the Seventeenth Century.

In my native New Brunswick, the last witch trial was not in 1692 or even 1792. It was in 1915. There were similar incidents in Ireland even later. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was influential in the defense of an Irish couple charged with murdering their infant child. The child was believed to be a "changeling" (usually an elderly or sickly fairy left in place of a healthy human infant stolen by the fairies) and was "treated" in accordance with folklore, IIRC, by placing it on a red-hot shovel (one of several folk treatments). It died, naturally.

The thing is, without modern science or medicine, simple peasants have no concept of the various genetic, epigenetic or congenital diseases and deformities that can afflict a new-born. Many conditions well-known to Farkers were explained by folk beliefs in either demons or fairies or other malign or spiteful forces. This was in the 1920s, even later than the New Brunswick witch trial, one of the last in the Western world. Many people believe in all these things even today.

I am sure that many of these stories are just rumours of things that happened far away from those who believe the rumours as well as us. Many African newspapers are as full of nonsense as Fox News or Pravda or the Aftenposten. But the evangelical material that African Christians (and presumably Muslims) are handing out are full of stories of sorcery, witches, and shapeshifting unbelievers and backsliders.

Much of this literature is "well-intended" if mendacious and credulous.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. I've run across New Englanders who still believe, like H.P. Lovecraft and his more bigoted contemporaries, that French Canada is full of sorcerers and loup-garous.

My genealogical research has turned up some extraordinary stories that would have interested Charles Hoy Fort immensely if he had known about them. My family tree includes not only Salem witches but some really strange cranks and religious nutters.

Years of study and genealogy tell me that there isn't much difference between these often tragic delusions in deepest darkest New England and in the more modern and go-ahead bits of Africa.

brantgoose:The thing is, without modern science or medicine, simple peasants have no concept of the various genetic, epigenetic or congenital diseases and deformities that can afflict a new-born. Many conditions well-known to Farkers were explained by folk beliefs in either demons or fairies or other malign or spiteful forces. This was in the 1920s, even later than the New Brunswick witch trial, one of the last in the Western world. Many people believe in all these things even today.

This is the same thing that brings us 'legitimate rape' comments popular among half-a-dozen republican politicians. It was actually commonly believed back then that a raped woman could physically not get pregnant. Legends such as these get passed on, and without biologic knowledge to the contrary, persist even today.

Even some high-tech south Koreans are afraid of 'fan death', that if a fan is left running in an enclosed room it will eventually deplete all the oxygen and suffocate the occupants. And this is a superstition that requires electricity as a part of it.

I haven't thought of KITH for quite some time. I have all of the show on DVD but haven't watched several boxes again. I must add them to my rotation.

I imagine a lot of people testifying to Congress would love to squish a few obdurate, thick, and partisan heads.

I have a book entitled Everybody's Pixilated (a pun on drunk and pixels, the smallest points of ink in printing) which is a collection of doodles by people famous in the 1930s or thereabouts. One Congressman used to draw pictures of turkeys when a certain member of Congress was speaking. Doodles are quite interesting and revealing sometimes.

When I take notes my doodles are often related to the subject at hand but can be almost anything you can think of if my mind wanders. I have drawn whole art galleries of sketches for paintings, for example. I don't draw well enough to be an artist but I have plenty of ideas. I'd love to be able to participate in Photoshop contests but I'm too lazy, lack even basic skillz, and can't imagine spending the amount of time some of the better contributors put into their graphic art.

But I have plenty of ideas. Whole libraries of unwritten books, galleries of unmade art, and perhaps a few scientific theories that could be tested if I had a few million to invest in venture capital projects or scientific experiments.

I'm a regular Leonardo Naw Vinci, roiling with inspiration but very poor at follow-up.

Alas, to paraphrase the existentialists, genius is as genius does. To be a real genius, you must produce works of genius. That is all.

Real Women Drink Akvavit:kd8our: How the fark do people come up with this shiat? I mean really. I have heard of penis panic, but damn is it among the dumbest things I have ever heard come out of humanity.

I honestly suggest that if we give aid to such people that the aid should also include basic education and biology. Failing that, let them figure it out or starve trying.

The book Sex and the Paranormal explains it beautifully, along with a whole host of other weirdness ranging from the Old Hag syndrome to alien abduction.

Old hag syndrome? Is that the Asian woman time vertex where they look 18 until 50, then bam, instant Yoda Crone?

brantgoose:Also note that this sort of belief in witchcraft is, as the article says, something which was common in our own societies not all that long ago, historically speaking. You might think that no one believes in witchcraft in the West today, but you'd be wrong. I was constantly exposed to silly rumours when I was younger by fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, who belief in witches, Satanic cults and conspiracies and so forth. In my native Province of New Brunswick (which is no more backwards than bits of New England, let alone the American South), there has been witchcraft panics not unlike those in Africa.

Yup -- grew up in rural Alberta... Most churches were normal science loving protestant or catholic balls of guilt. Not the Seventh day adventists. My buddies (they were SDA) mom burnt a board game because it had a picture of a tiki idol on the box. They didnt allow drums or anything with a strong beat in their church because (I kid you not from the words of a church elder) "thats how 'tribal people' talk to satan." And I remember his older sister got upset and ratted us out for watching a movie with dragons in it. (it was mortal kombat 2 and we were 16 at the time.)

Still -- if one of them had ever suggested someone had actually practiced or performed witchcraft i think most of the people in that community would have quietly suggested they talk to a doctor. When we hear stories about people getting roofied and having their kidneys stolen we know in the back of our minds that its all bull. Its a story that plays on our fears about date rape and drugs and all sorts of crap. But if someone ran out into a party and screamed MAH KID-KNEES BEEN STOLE!!!! Nobody would get hauled into the middle of the room and shot.

I'm not disagreeing with you in any way -- far from it. I just wonder what keeps their natural reasoning from kicking in. I'mean -- there was no burden of proof. None. The guy didn't even have to drop his pants to show it had actually happened. I could understand some sort of taboo againts certain groups -- but someone actually being accused of witchcraft and shot is pretty insane.

mikefinch:Still -- if one of them had ever suggested someone had actually practiced or performed witchcraft i think most of the people in that community would have quietly suggested they talk to a doctor. When we hear stories about people getting roofied and having their kidneys stolen we know in the back of our minds that its all bull. Its a story that plays on our fears about date rape and drugs and all sorts of crap. But if someone ran out into a party and screamed MAH KID-KNEES BEEN STOLE!!!! Nobody would get hauled into the middle of the room and shot.